#Career
THE PERFECT PLAN
In 2017, the Planning Department of Imperial Tobacco was reorganized resulting in the implementation of a new process, new
tools and new team set-up for market forecasting. The department focuses on two ITG product categories: new-generation products
and tobacco products. Daria Ruzaeva is responsible for predicting the demand of the company’s most innovative product – myblu,
and Ilya Kaufman manages the tobacco segment. Ilya and four other team members – Oksana Trubina, Ekaterina Zimovets and Dmitry
Pyzhikov – have joined ITG during the last year, and Irina Dubrovina, who has been working with the company since 2016, remains a key
asset of the team.
* Interview with Brice Barberon,
Director of Insights and Intelligence
for the Russia and Central Asia
Cluster (I&I Department), can be
found in the previous issue of
The Imperialist magazine.
Brice Barberon, Head of Insights & Intelligence Russia & CA
Through this new organization, ITG developed more channels expertise,
which is key to effectively compete in today’s market context. In addition,
we strengthened our capabilities having clear accountabilities for
both demand and supply planning, areas which requires different
competencies. Improved forecasting accuracy is one of the key
achievements of our team, which has increased from 36% in October
2017 to a record high 85% in May 2018. Moreover, we are now capable
to plan on a per customer level for our Key Account channel. Granularity
in our predictions is extremely important and having robust predictions
of what customers like «Red & White» or «Bristol» will be buying is
challenging but critical for accurately planning our business.
On a daily basis, the team assesses the current state of the market
and its changes, analyzes and forecasts sales, and continuously
monitors our sales performance. All these data allow the company to
competently plan overall demand and supply needs, from a region and
channel perspective on the short and long-term periods.
The Planning Department is a structural unit of the I&I* Department,
which deals with Pricing, Market Intelligence,Market research and
Forecasting & Performance tracking.
Daria Ruzaeva, Cluster Forecasting
and Performance Manager
I have recently taken over the responsibility of sales
planning for the newest product in our company – myblu.
I am responsible for planning the sales volumes and
evaluating performance related to the new-generation
products.
To put it simple, I’m responsible for ensuring that the product
is available in the right place at the right time in the right amount.
I joined the team during the period of major changes – updated
organizational structure, new office, and the launch of new large
projects George and London. Many processes underwent changes,
and we had to re-establish relations with other department trying
to satisfy their needs without sacrificing our own performance for
the sake of achieving the common goal. Moreover, the entire team
worked on automating all the data-related processes for speeding
up calculations while maintaining the quality of final data. As of
now, I know we have achieved a lot, and enabled high efficacy and
continuing perfection.
I do like many things about my work, including the team, the
significance of the process under my responsibility, and achieving
results. The team are the people who we spend most of our time
with working on significant tasks, which is also a platform for many
other processes in the company; together, we feel proud with the
results, or worry about failures. Only inside the team, we know
how much efforts and time has been invested in a report, a tool or
a result.
Life credo: At this stage of my life, I aim to balance work, family
and hobbies.
What do you prefer to eat for breakfast? My mom’s porridge!
It’s somehow magical. I feel as if being a 7-year-old, and my key
issue is to convince my mom to buy Chinese jump ropes of an acid
color, and leggings of the same color.
Ilya Kaufman, Cluster Forecasting
and Performance Manager
Comparing our work to the construction of the
tower of Babel (which is partially true since in
the planning you are closer to the ideal but it’s
still unachievable), then I am responsible for the
translation, in most cases, simultaneous. My team
comprises excellent engineers, architects, bricklayers and
carpenters capable of solving any construction task. We have
enough of counterparties supplying us with the best resources,
and our customers are well-off ambitious people. But they all
frequently speak different languages. I consider my efforts
a success if the final result meets the expectations of all the
participants.
Over the year of this work, we have significantly amended
the company’s planning process to meet the current market
challenges. Thus, the sales planning has become much more
precise, which was enabled by the well coordinated work of the
expert team which we managed to build, and which is actually
our prime achievement. Despite all the multiple successes, we
are still at the very early stages of modernizing the planning
process. The possibility to introduce improvements as well as
the results are extremely motivating and inspiring.
Life credo: A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single
step.
What do you prefer to eat for breakfast? I prefer a good
steak but unfortunately, I eat porridge.
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